


In Which Johannes Cabal, a Necromancer of Little Infamy, and Horst, His Formerly Vampiric Brother, Embark on a Cruise to Somewhere

by alektheloris



Category: Johannes Cabal - Jonathan L. Howard
Genre: Fiction, I swear these brothers are going to be the death of me, Johannes Cabal cruise AU, Necromancy, The Brothers Cabal, Who wouldn't want to vacation with Johannes?, comic fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2014-12-11
Packaged: 2018-03-01 02:52:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2756855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alektheloris/pseuds/alektheloris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heavens, who wouldn't want to embark on a cruise getaway with none other than Johannes Cabal? Horst, ever the optimist and always game for a bit of fun, is determined to put his sarcastic and gloomy brother Johannes in a good mood. Will Johannes ever loosen up and enjoy the vacation?</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Which Johannes Cabal, a Necromancer of Little Infamy, and Horst, His Formerly Vampiric Brother, Embark on a Cruise to Somewhere

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! So I'm currently finishing up the hilariously wicked Johannes Cabal series by Jonathan L. Howard and I cannot get this infamous necromancer and his stylish vampiric brother off my mind. So to ring in the holidays, have a cute little holiday vacation AU featuring my faves, Johannes and Horst.

"Good god Horst, this is the last time I'm leaving the travel logistics to you...we're not even riding in first class," spat Johannes Cabal, Necromancer. 

Horst Cabal, the only (known) recovering vampire on the cruise liner, rolled his eyes, sipped at his gin and tonic, and proceeded to ignore the sour mood of his brother. Which was really not out of the ordinary, but Cabal did seem more terse than usual. "Just smile and wave as we pull out of the harbor, Johannes. Let loose!"

The demand to "let loose" did nothing to deter Cabal's usual sour demeanor. He stared into the gentle sea breeze through his dark blue tinted spectacles as their ship departed from port to Who Knows Where...

"Look at this floating breeding ground for gastroenteritis."

"Come on Johannes, let's have some fun!" Horst clinked his small glass against Cabal's in what was supposed to be a toast, but Cabal shrunk back from his older brother's inexplicable glee. Horst ruffled the straying blonde tufts on the top of Cabal's head, furthering a deepening frown in the visage of this particular necromancer. 

Cabal stared dead pan at Horst, with a most unamused expression and one eyebrow cocked over the rim of his glasses. "What do you mean? I am having fun." 

"Pffft no you're not, and you're not hiding it well. Johannes, you simply are not going to ruin this vacation for me. I packed the better half of my wardrobe for this trip and I don't intend to waste it sitting in the gloom of our state room with you and the curtains drawn in in broad daylight. Now that I can finally enjoy the day time that is..." Horst eyed Cabal, looking him up and down. "Now that I think of it-"

"Oh here we go-"

"We really must think about broadening your fashion sense, dear Johannes."

"With what, do you propose? There is nothing wrong with my wardrobe, it's perfectly functional."

Horst scoffed, before taking another sip of his drink. "That's just it. Day in and day out you wear the same thing. It's time to shake up your routine a bit."

"Excuse me?" Cabal adjusted his cravat.

"Yes, something with a bit more flair."  
Now it was Cabal's time to roll his eyes. "Again I ask, how do you propose to do such a thing? Given that I let you of course..."  
....

"Horst, what the ever living hell is this?" Johannes Cabal poked and prodded at the hat Horst ever so kindly plopped on his head, ruining his perfectly slicked hair. He placed his spectacles on one of the many oak side table of his and Horst's master suite.

Horst, ever the budding stylist, stepped back with a wide grin. What did Cabal sense in Horst's expression, a tint of pride? Amusement? Most definitely at least amusement. 

"Well I must say, I've outdone myself." Horst nodded in agreement of his own statement. "Yes, that wide-brimmed hat looks lovely on you, dear Johannes."

Cabal frowned. "It's not exactly my speed."

"Well it is black. So yes, I would say that it most certainly is your speed." 

Johannes Cabal fetched his loyal Gladstone bag from the comforter of his twin bed adjacent Horst's. After rummaging through for a moment, producing a few test tubes and flasks of unmentionable substances, a parasol, a misplaced skull, and various other paraphernalia, he wielded a second pair of spectacles. Unlike his signature lenses, these were not blue-tinted, but plain black spectacles. Prompted by Horst's raised brow, Cabal shrugged and admitted, "These at least match the hat."

Horst clapped his hands in glee and exclaimed, "Excellent! Let us go down to the pool then. I just need to find my swim trunks....hmm where did I put those..." And per usual he drifted off to peruse his large steamer trunk.

Cabal shot a glare in his brother's direction. Surely he must be kidding. How could Horst expect to go to somewhere so vile and pedestrian. Not only could there be a sea serpent or two lurking just below the surface of the surely chlorine-shocked pool waters...but there would most likely be children there as well. Cabal would rather deal with the former, if he was being honest with himself. "No way."

"Oh come on Johannes, it'll be fun!"

"Watching you splash around in a pool of water surely infiltrated with the sweat and bodily odors of others does not sound like a pleasing time to me."

Horst produced his swim trunks and went to the bathroom to change. "Johannes, you can sit by the edge, sunbathing and looking ever so forlorn. Who knows, if I'm lucky you'll scare away some of the shoobies and I'll have the water all to myself!" He turned back to Cabal. "Just bring a book, get yourself a drink and relax already! We're on vacation!"

Cabal uttered a very audible hmph, to which Horst shot back, "At least pretend you're having fun. For me?"

"Okay," Cabal conceded. "For you, Horst."

 

Wielding a rather handsome, and stolen, copy of an original manuscript of Thomas More's Utopia (in Latin of course) and with measured reluctance, Cabal joined Horst at the pool. Abandoning his cravat, vest, and dress shirt in the room, Cabal had donned a new pair of black spectacles, open toed sandals, and wide brimmed hat. He completed his ensemble with his usual black, pressed slacks and a lighter black cotton t shirt. 

As clearly out of place Cabal was in this tropical environment, the people he and Horst passed on their way to claim chairs pool-side did not take so much notice of Cabal's funereal presence. Instead, they (men, women, people of all genders and sexes) took notice of Horst, who was dressed handsomely in nothing but a red speedo. Sporting his usual amicable smile, his washboard abs weren't shabby either. Put simply, Horst was one hot and dapper motherfucker. 

"Damn Horst, all these people are staring at you."

Horst shrugged with a coy smile. "It may surprise you to note, Johannes, that I am quite attractive." 

"Indeed. I'm sure you'll pick up a few admirers before his trip is over."

Horst winked at Cabal through his sunglasses. "Haha I do hope so."

Johannes Cabal plopped down in a reclining beach chair and kicked off his sandals. "Remember, only an hour or so okay? I had to drench myself in that horrid crap you people call sunscreen, which was oily and unpleasant. I got the fair complexion in our family, and I don't think I'll even last in the sun that long--"

But Horst only heard half of Cabal's rant and chose to ignore the rest as he dived straight into the chlorinated water. Cabal shook his head, sighed, and picked up his place in More's Utopia.

In the midst of Book 2, Cabal picked up with the explorer Raphael's discovery of the island of Utopia. Unfortunately the cruise liner Horst picked had luggage restrictions and Cabal was displeased to find he could only manage to bring a half dozen books on his person, not including his notebooks and diaries. Utopia, which was a challenge for most scholars, would have to do for some light reading. Cabal would manage. 

Cabal no sooner flipped a page in the manuscript than he felt a prickling along the edge of his foot, now on his Achilles heel and still again on his ankle. Before Cabal had the chance to rationalize how one of his vicious and diabolical garden sprites with a penchant for murder and a bloodlust that rivaled a newborn vampire could have snuck into the folds of his monochromatic wardrobe tightly packed into the luggage, Johannes Cabal was quite literally swept off his feet and unceremoniously slapped against the surface of the water as he was gently dragged feet first into the pool water. 

Cabal slapped and kicked at his enemies, surely lying in wait at the bottom of the pool, struggling to break the surface for breath and managed to get ahold of the side of the pool tile and haul himself above water. He emerged with his dark tinted glasses still on in typical Johannes fashion and gagged on a little water as he tried to catch his breath. The better part of onlookers just stared with irritably annoying smiled, noted Cabal, and he wondered what the in the hell they were smirking at. Once more he felt s playful splash on his face as Horst slapped water in Cabal's direction, a huge and obnoxious smile on his face.

"FUCK Horst was that you?!"

"Come on Johannes, everyone has to have their fun, even me haha," winking once again at his older and more uptight brother. 

Cabal hoisted himself up and sat on the pool's edge, a sopping wet mess, slacks and shirt sticking to his pale white skin. He rubbed the moisture from his glasses and quickly put them back on, should his eyes catch any of the high sun's errant rays. "That wasn't even a bit funny. You ruined my good pants."

The former Lord of the Death climbed out to join Cabal and tossed him a towel. "You brought five pairs exactly like them with you, unclench."

Refusing to take off his drenched clothes, Cabal made a feeble attempt at gracefully dying off his hair as best he could. "You're lucky I dropped my manuscript before you pulled me in, otherwise I would be far more pissed. I'm still pissed though."

Horst put a muscled arm around Cabal. People had stopped staring at him finally, but not Horst . A cute guy with raggedy hair, muscles rippling a bit more than Horst's own, was still staring at him from across the way. "My dear Johannes, how are we going to get you to have fun?"

"Give up while you're behind Horst, I don't usually partake in fun other than that which I consider entertaining, namely my academic studies."

"Okay okay...But if you were to, how would one get you to have fun?"

"I don't know."  
"Maybe a drink or two would loosen you up."

Cabal rolled his eyes, his signature response to that which is irrationally stupid. "Maybe. But I don't intend to drink while here." Horst pulled Cabal to his feet and whispered under his breath, "We'll see about that." 

Snapping his neck around, Cabal spat, "What was that?"

"Oh nothing." Horst smiled sweetly.

As Cabal whipped around to make a swift exit from the deck, and his certain almost watery demise and complete humiliation, he could have sworn out of the edge of his periphery he spotted the peculiar, leonine hair of a woman he had come to know very well indeed...

 

Since Horst was snoring louder than a blasted fog horn, about which Cabal could do absolutely nothing other than shake his brother awake in repeated intervals only to be ignored, Johannes set off in the breezy, pitch dark early morning air to escape the claustrophobic and noisy cabin.

Meandering the homogeneously decorated pale blue hallways, Cabal found himself out on the edge of the second class deck. Though not as blatantly luxurious as the first class level above, this one was far from austere and afforded plenty of comfortable lounging, sunbathing, and dining space for evening appetizers and cocktails. Come to think of it, Cabal didn't know the name of the cruise liner upon which he and his brother were traveling, nor to where they were headed. This lack of foresight momentarily hitched Johannes Cabal in his own tracks, and he wondered for a brief second if he was dreaming. Deciding that there was no empirical way to distinguish these circumstances as real, or as indeed separate from the dreaded Dreamlands, Cabal walked on. With this futility in mind, he proceeded to the side of the ship and swiftly puked his dinner right over the edge. 

Cabal wiped his mouth with a spare handkerchief he kept handy. "Thank god no one was around to see that. Horst would taunt me for the rest of the trip."

He was enjoying the silence of this reprieve that he started as he heard a sweet but slightly raspy voice behind him.

"Yes, but now I get to make fun of you, Johannes Cabal. You asshole."

Regaining his composure and ignoring the brief but annoying startled feeling, Cabal sniffed, "Hello Leonie--Miss Barrow."

Leonie stepped out of the shadows in a jade green sun dress, which Cabal hesitated to note suited her quite nicely. "I thought I caught the whiff of an infamous asshat necromancer on this ship...and to think I had escaped you once and for all."

"A whiff you say? I thought that was the bad fish at dinner. What, may I ask, are you doing here Miss Barrow?"

Leonie raised her brow so high on her forehead that Cabal thought it momentarily fish-hooked. "I could--and should--ask you the same damn question Cabal. But as it so happens, I'm on vacation."

"Me too," Cabal admitted.

"I didn't know your kind took vacations. It seems out of character."

"Horst planned it."

"I see." Leonie's usually warm nature tended to take a vacation when it came to dealings with Johannes Cabal. 

He took a step toward her, unsure if she would shoot him with a pistol or two he was sure she was concealing. "So.....," he began, "Where exactly is this ship heading to anyway?"

"You mean you signed up for a cruise unsure of where it was going?"

"It seems that's exactly what I did," said Cabal, always one to be matter-of-fact. 

Leonie rolled her eyes. "It's going to Somewhere."

Cabal squinted his eyes, uncomprehending for once. "Excuse me, what? Where is it going?" 

"That's exactly it: it's going to Somewhere. It's this long undiscovered island in the pacific, and the island is literally called Somewhere."

Cabal pushed his spectacles further up his nose and rubbed his chin. "Curious indeed." He paused before brushing past Leonie and heading for the stairs leading back to his suite. "Well it is late, or rather early, and I might be going. Maybe I shall see you at breakfast tomorrow."

The truth of the matter was, Cabal felt a new round of nausea, and did not want to make himself vulnerable by puking in front of Leonie again, giving her further reason to taunt him. So he made his way back to the state room, leaving her in the star dusted night outside.

"Oooh Johannes look! They have a breakfast buffet!" exclaimed Horst as he scuttled over to the aforementioned buffet in the spacious dining hall of the upper deck. Floor to ceiling windows that faced out onto the deck, and further than that, through to the seemingly endless expanse of azure sea beyond, afforded generous warm light entering the room.

Cabal sputtered. "How vulgar...I refuse to eat like an animal from a trough."

Not one to be deterred, as so many others were by Cabal's detestable attitude, Horst gestured vaguely in the direction of one of the tables up against the sunlit windows in which Cabal should go and sit. Thankful for the break from Horst's annoyingly good mood, Johannes contemplated his meeting with Leonie last night, and wondered if she would be at breakfast.

Horst bounded to their table bearing two carefully made plates of scrambled eggs, steak, and toast. "That was nice if you to make a plate for me Horst."

"Hah you know Johannes, it wouldn't kill you to say thank you once in a while."

"Well then, thank you." Cabal attempted a terse smile, for the sake of his brother. 

 

Well as narrative time jumps go, this was a particularly large one, and now we join Johannes and Horst Cabal strolling again back to this very same space in which they dined on breakfast, redecorated to the post-dinner cocktail party that it was. Cabal was dressed in his usual ware, cravat, blue spectacles, skull tipped cane and all. However Horst had donned an outfit much more suitable for the occasion, if perhaps a tad overdressed for a cruise, complete with his Oxford dandy shoes. 

"Johannes, look at all this wonderful decor!" Cabal took note of what he thought was the tacky decorated dining space, boasting flower leis being handed out to individuals, plenty of wicker chairs, stools, and cocktail tables, as well as drinks served out of coconuts and plenty other gaudy and colorful decorations besides. Johannes Cabal decided, not for the first time, that this was not his scene, and vocalized as much: "Horst, this place looks tacky. Like a party store threw up in it. Such poor taste."

Horst smiled lazily at Cabal. "Haha right, you would." He clapped his hands together. "Well I think it's positively charming." 

"I should have helped them redesign the space, make it a bit less gaudy." As if to demonstrate further critique, Johannes lowered his glasses on his nose and took another look around the crowded room. 

"Johannes, if you had helped, this whole place would look like s funeral parlor."

Cabal crinkled his brow, offended. "And what's wrong with that?"  
Horst opened his mouth to reply and berate his annoying as hell brother when Leonie appeared from the end of the bar behind him.

"Ready for the conga line boys? Should be starting up in another minute or so." Leonie smiled with a pleasant, alcohol-induced relaxed manner. "Hello Horst," she added, smiling with a wink in her eye that to Cabal seemed to betray her attraction to, and preference for, Horst. 

Cabal pointedly ignored her and turned back to his brother. "Horst, I'm probably going to shoot myself in the foot for asking this later, but what exactly is a conga line? I've never come into contact with such vernacular."

Leonie was never one to be deterred by Cabal's inflated ego and his inability to function in casual social situations, so she plowed on. "Why don't you find out for yourself. Come on, Johannes Cabal, get out of your pretentious cloud space and back down to earth like the rest of us. Don't act like you're better than everyone else, because news flash, you're human too. And a right asshole, if I may say so."

Cabal sniffed and wiped his nose with a handkerchief in an expression of boredom. "If I may, Miss Barrow," he continued, "There's no need to be so rash with me."

Leonie shot dagger at Cabal, figuratively speaking of course since she didn't have any daggers on her. If she had, she surely would have shot those at him too. She placed her drink on the edge of the bar closest to Horst, also in a coconut with a little umbrella, and took the former Lord of the Dead's hand. Horst flushed in surprise and tagged along as Leonie dragged him to the dance floor on the other side of the room. Cabal barely caught the words, "Come on Horst, let's conga!" as they paved their way across the growing sea of drunk people. 

Cabal smiled, the smug grin only a wily and pompous necromancer could smile. Finally he had his alone time, and Horst had his fun. Cabal looked forward to Horst with a few drinks in him while hopefully sashaying the length of a conga line. He did truly enjoy others making fools of themselves.

Johannes Cabal had to admit, maybe this vacation would be fun, after all.


End file.
